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Wondering about Jessica. I found myself wondering aloud about POWs Jessica Lynch and Shoshana Johnson and casualty Lori Piestewa, and saw that Jeanne d'Arc of Body and Soul had already wondered about the same issues that troubled me. Her post is dated April 6, a week before POW Shoshana was found:

...I had found myself wondering, too, if the situations were reversed and Lori Piestewa, the Hopi woman who was killed in Iraq, had been rescued, and Jessica Lynch had died, if we would not now be seeing the tragic death as more important than the rescue. If we wouldn't be thinking, yes, thank God that one woman was rescued, but we must not forget the brave, blonde girl who died at the hands of evil men, and fight all the harder in her memory. The word "wondering" is the key there. I'm aware of how often the issues and concerns of anyone who isn't white, male or middle class (preferably all three) get shoved to the margins, and when something like this happens, it's pretty hard not to notice that the media is obsessed with one particular woman, and that her pigmentation is different from that of the majority of women in the military.

Lori's story is told in "What about Private Lori?" in The Guardian.

Links via Progressive Gold and The Agonist.

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